Democracy and Information in the Age of Digitalization

Abstract

What is the state of democracy today? In the Western world, people often take the meaning of this term for granted, but do they genuinely know what democracy is? In this sense, how can we define democracy in today’s digitalized world? What is the relationship between democracy and information? Furthermore, do we really live in a democratic world? In Infocracy: Digitalization and the Crisis of Democracy—the 2022 translation of the original German book Infokratie. Digitalisierung und die Krise der Demokratie, published in 2021 by MSB Matthes & Seitz Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH—Byung-Chul Han reflects on these and other related issues. Han’s analysis of the current political, social, and technological situation indicates that a profound democratic crisis is emerging. The loss of interest in truth, the end of grand narratives, the replacement of reason with data analysis (even in philosophy), the fragmentation of the population due to digitalization, and the predominant role of information in everyday life are all symptoms of a radical transformation underway in Western society, with severe consequences for democratic stability. In these terms, Han’s vision, at times excessively pessimistic, orients us on the crucial issues of our time.

Keywords

• byung-chul han
• democracy
• digitalization
• infocracy
• information
• truth